diff --git a/e2e/perstack-cli/options.test.ts b/e2e/perstack-cli/options.test.ts
index c1792d82..3ab1cd56 100644
--- a/e2e/perstack-cli/options.test.ts
+++ b/e2e/perstack-cli/options.test.ts
@@ -162,35 +162,30 @@ describe.concurrent("CLI Options", () => {
 
 describe.concurrent("CLI Options - Filter", () => {
   /** Verifies --filter option with single type.
-   * Retries up to 3 times because --filter completeRun only outputs the final
-   * event; when the LLM call errors the runtime emits stopRunByError (blocked
-   * by the filter) and exits 0 with zero events.
+   * Uses startRun (emitted before LLM calls) to avoid flakiness from LLM
+   * errors that produce stopRunByError instead of completeRun.
    */
   it(
-    "should filter events to only completeRun",
+    "should filter events to only startRun",
     async () => {
-      const args = [
-        "run",
-        "--config",
-        GLOBAL_RUNTIME_CONFIG,
-        "--filter",
-        "completeRun",
-        "e2e-global-runtime",
-        "Say hello",
-      ]
-      let result = withEventParsing(await runCli(args, { timeout: LLM_TIMEOUT }))
-      for (
-        let attempt = 1;
-        attempt < 3 && result.exitCode === 0 && result.events.length === 0;
-        attempt++
-      ) {
-        result = withEventParsing(await runCli(args, { timeout: LLM_TIMEOUT }))
-      }
+      const cmdResult = await runCli(
+        [
+          "run",
+          "--config",
+          GLOBAL_RUNTIME_CONFIG,
+          "--filter",
+          "startRun",
+          "e2e-global-runtime",
+          "Say hello",
+        ],
+        { timeout: LLM_TIMEOUT },
+      )
+      const result = withEventParsing(cmdResult)
       expect(result.exitCode).toBe(0)
 
-      // All events should be completeRun
+      // All events should be startRun
       const eventTypes = result.events.map((e) => e.type)
-      expect(eventTypes.every((t) => t === "completeRun")).toBe(true)
+      expect(eventTypes.every((t) => t === "startRun")).toBe(true)
       expect(eventTypes.length).toBeGreaterThan(0)
     },
     LLM_TIMEOUT,